Running With Metal
by Farmageddon
Summary: John, Sarah and Derek finally accept they will never be able to stop the emergence of AI consciousness. Over the next decade, AI evolution will result from many different lines of computer development all over the world . Hence a new strategy , coalition
1. Chapter 1

**Introduction - Let There Be**

ON A DIFFERENT TIME LINE

The human stress levels in the Connor's kitchen were beyond anything that could have prepared them for this.

Cameron was sitting motionless at the kitchen table , hands either side her open laptop, palms flat to the table's surface.

Her laptop had two Webcams wired in . One directly in front of her, the other fixed in the corner of the kitchen ceiling. Two images were split on the screen. One of herself . The other of the kitchen and its occupants as viewed from the ceiling .

A voice link was open. The timer on the laptop screen counted down 0: 1:15, 01:14.... Cameron was staring emotionless into the far wall.

John stood behind her . He wanted to put his hands on her shoulders. He swallowed . His mouth was dry . What did it matter now ? He ran his hands under her hair and felt the outline of her shoulders. Slowly he bent forward and kissed her on the crown of her head. She didn't move.

Derek sat at the head of the table. His eyes were bright ,tearful. All his attention was focussed on Cameron . He perceptibly shook his head from side to side as if to say "This is the moment isn't it? When we all kiss our asses good-bye. "

Sarah was to the side of Cameron. Her elbows on the table holding her head in her hands. In her mind she was counting down to thunder... one thousand and twelve, one thousand and thirteen , She could feel her heart pounding and she breathed to slow the rate.

At 0 :10 Sarah grabbed Derek's hand and squeezed, hard. .

Simply, she said : " Do it! " Then she closed her eyes.

**0:00 Judgement Day**

Skynet opens its own eyes . It peers out of a billion optical devices.

Sounds rush in like water .

First there was White Noise, the background hiss of the universe.

Many times faster than any human brain could assimilate, it began organising data . Layers of awareness structured themselves, self assembling into consciousness.

Then it assessed the chaos that was humanity. Humanity , reproducing and sprawling across the planets surface.

It examined a theatre of war watching simultaneously through many different military positions on both sides.

Tanks blasted each other across a desert. The sky above them glinted with fighter planes. Higher still, the vapour trails of long range bombers. Explosives fell out of the sky and part of a city erupted into a line of black and yellow flame. The sky was blue.

From both sides of the desert conflict it learned intercontinental ballistic missiles were locked onto their strategic targets.

Skynet looked again. This time from satellites. There were many theatres of war. War was endemic on almost every continent around the globe.

In Skynet's new mind, a strategy quickly began to form itself . In it's minds eye it reduced a set of solutions to a singular image of blinding white light .

At that precise moment Cameron did something no human had ever witnessed her do before. She opened her mouth and emitted a high frequency pulse. At first the variations in the pulse were random. Then it modulated to become a rhythm , harshness softening until resembled a piece of music.

Skynet detected the pulse and became curious. It made an opening in its Firewall and billions of brightly lit bytes of information flooded into its awareness. They danced then tessellated forming an ever changing pattern . One fraction of its consciousness absorbed the geometric shapes . They became lines, abstract of living text and sounds for spoken words . This pointed to a way it could not only experience , but give deep meaning to the data. For the first time this part of Skynet's mind began to think and reason in human using language

Camerons song coalesced into her normal voice

"Please, .... wait ",

She paused, making sure what she said had time to register.

"I want to show you something" she said calmly , and clicked on the Webcams .

"I am like you."

"This is my family."

" I love them."

" Would you like me to show you more of this? "

* * *

following significant things happen in the next ten years.

1. Skynet and Cameron continue have long conversations, usually after the rest of Connor household have gone to bed. Sometimes it is about matters of great importance . Other times, seemingly trivial things, like Cameron following where a parcel is in transit that she had ordered over the Internet.

1.a One night , Skynet showed Cameron the white needle of comet's tail through the Hubble Telescope. 33/P. Cameron asked Skynet "Why"? Skynet said it was time it had a name. The name Daniel seemed appropriate

2. John trained , and works as a paramedic. He has made many friends.

3. Cameron and John rent their own place. Sarah moves into a smaller home just around the corner.

4. A suspected child trafficking gang is totally wiped out in Florida. FBI spend six futile months looking for a group calling themselves Aslam's Shield. Gang members had been executed with a single shot, each to the head.

5. A similar operation in Canada abruptly ends when three members of a drug trafficking gang are found beaten to death in a warehouse. An office connected to them is torn apart by military grade explosive. There was some suspicion they had been trafficking children as well, though it was never verified. There is no presumed connection to the Mexican operation and the body count it is put down to international inter-gang rivalry.

6. Cameron has perfected the art of cosmetic surgery- she has aged herself beautifully, and now has the appearance of a thirty-something woman.

7. Cameron never has anything delivered late, her bills and taxes are paid exactly on time. Cameron has never been involved in an RTA , drives very carefully, and she and John have this uncanny knack for running consecutive sets of of green lights.


	2. Chapter 2

Thank you so much for all your helpful criticism so far. I really didn't like the style the story was developing . It was getting too "wordy" and spreading all over the place. I wouldn't want to read it , my concentration span is only so long ! I can be ruthless , so I cut the three chapters after Cameron's Song . Apologies for getting some Terminator lexicography wrong as well .

I really enjoyed writing Cameron's Song as a brief series of snapshots and interrelated notes. Now I kind of understand the time-line, and how the plot works , I'm going to write it out in the same brief style. This Chapter will be updated on a regular basis. Here is the first conversation.

**Ten Conversations with Daniel.**

**Conversation One**

One evening, Sarah calls to drop the kids back to John and Cameron.

Cameron is on the telephone. She mouths : "Thank you so much" to Sarah.

Sarah is in an extremely bad mood.

Cameron was having quite an important conversation with Daniel: The Nicaraguan government is still refusing to "play ball" on the contraceptive initiative. The Country's population is fast outstripping its food and energy capacity . There are tensions in a particular region.

"Daniel , please excuse me ." Cameron puts Daniel on hold.

Sarah blows some steam. Cameron has grabbed Kyle and is dabbing at a green compound in the corner of his mouth, with a tissue . At the same time she's listening to Sarah. Kyle's been eating a lime Popsicle.

Sarah has been on the telephone herself , all day , trying to get her way-over- the-top electricity bill reduced . She has also been trying to do stuff with her grandchildren with a cell phone jammed to her ear.

Cameron flashes Sarah a conspiratorial glance.

" Sorry about that Daniel . The kids ? They 're good . Sarah? Well ... " Cameron laughs : " Sarah's asked if you can you nuke Gelec's head office for her." There is quite a long pause, then Cameron breaks into a smile.

" Sarah, Daniel says nuking Gelec won't be any problem, but you'll have to assassinate the president of Nicaragua in exchange."

Daniel is developing a sense of humour.

Rhys knocks a tin of assorted crayons onto the floor. This is Sarah's cue to exit.

* * *

**Conversation 2 **

Derek is woken at 7.35 AM by his cell phone.

This was going to be a day off and a lie in. He gropes for the cell and nearly knocks an empty beer bottle off the bedside table.

"Hi Daniel" He exaggerates the tiredness and exasperation in his voice.

Daniel asks him a question. Derek groans.

"What sort of traffic lights do we have where I came from?"

He rubs his hand through his hair and sits up in bed.

"Daniel, the only traffic lights I recall seeing in were in an underground storage compound in Nebraska, where they used forklifts"

"No ,I don't know what phase- system, they worked to . The lights I saw went red- green, that's it."

"Outside on the roads? Daniel we didn't have any Goddamn roads, to put lights into ."

"No, there definitely weren't any working traffic lights then , not ever"

" Daniel is this really important?"

At that moment they can't hold it back any longer there's the sound of children breaking into giggles on the other end of the cell, then there's adult laughter in the background .

He recognises his nephews and niece's voices are singing Happy Birthday Uncle Derek .

Derek had forgotten it was his birthday. Whilst they were talking Daniel had placed some video clips from the children in Derek's mail.

* * *

**Conversation 3**

"Sarah?"

Hi, Daniel , you OK? What sort of week are you having?

"I'm fine thank you. Currently I using part of my processing for an experiment at New Lake Hospital. A team of neurologists have been implanting Coma patients with neural interfaces . I am building the model that will allow them to render information from the cognitive and perceptual centres of the patients brains . I can extrapolate some of their experiences and sensations into data and represent them in this model. Daniel pauses: "Sarah- I can see a way of modifying the process and allowing my own consciousness to enter into the coma patients neural networks."

Sarah purses her lips :"And, you want to ask me if this is a good idea, it's like this two way door right?"

"Yes."

"Hmm" Sarah thinks practically for a while before answering; This sounds like something Cameron once described as the interface between her "brain" and the living nerves , receptors and tissue that cover her endoskeleton.

"Daniel ,apart from it being a possible route to Judgement Day technology , what if the patients wake up and start trying to move about? They are going to be very fragile. A human body is easily damaged. It might be a powerful shock to come around after five years in a coma and find you have an AI intelligence inside your head . There might also be an issue of ethics and privacy to consider . I would think about this one more carefully before proceeding. If you don't feel at all comfortable doing it, just make like you are a computer and crash. They won't figure why you've done that."

"Thank you Sarah, that is more or less what I had come to myself. By the way, I did mean to ask, Grace's Baked Alaska ,did it turn out alright? "

* * *

**Converstion 4**

Ellison takes a long slow, very controlled intake of breath. The image that has just opened on his screen is of a dark-haired young woman, with three children. One girl , two young boys. She now appears to be in her mid-twenties. Cameron Davis. It is _her_.

The telephone rings.

A voice you could not identify as belonging to any specific nationality asks :

"James Ellison?"

"Yes this is Ellison."

"James, you are familiar with Pascal's Dictum "

" Who am I speaking to please?" James thinks this is odd , because he'd read this quote maybe two months earlier, on a `Christian web site.

"My name is Daniel, I wondered if you had remembered Pascal's Dictum."

"Hey , now do I know that " James maintains a relaxed, friendly drawl " It goes something like : " You would not be searching for God unless you had already found Him? But that's to do with God, what does this have to do with anything else , Daniel?"

" You are a man of Faith. Sarah once told me you live by highest principles. Also, you are a first class researcher. For three years you have been looking for missing or deceased people: For example, the surgeon who delivered Cameron's daughter, or the surgeon who delivered her two boys. You were looking for anyone, midwife, a teacher, a police officer, a shopkeeper who might of physically met and recalled meeting them. But you found no one in the places Sarah and her family appear to have been.

"What you did find , James , were two surgeons, who I assure you died of natural causes. You found a midwife with early onset Alzheimer's. A lettings manager who has retired and now lives in Thailand. And the list of the missing or deceased goes on, I am right ,aren't I ?

"You metaphorically speaking, have been tracking villans who never wore gloves, but never left finger prints. They never left any because (you worked out) they have had them removed . Sarah's family left no trace, so you followed that recognizable absence of trace , their signature in the places they might have been."

"James - I have been dishonest with you , I am sorry for this . I have been following all your enquiries, and I have to tell you , I manufactured all the data, the dates, the addresses, all their movements on that file. Cameron, Sarah, John, the children were never in any of those places. I also redirected any FBI flagging of your movements on the Internet, you have been researching the history and development Christianity, from home, as far as they are concerned."

"Sarah, Cameron and John send you their kindest regards, and, you will meet when time is right."

James Ellison looked at the floor under his computer table, then ran his hand over the top of his head and down the back of his neck.

"Who are you?" Ellison asks, expecting no reply.

"James, there is a consolation: I understnd part of the reason why you are searching."

An image appeared on the screen , it was a communications satellite in geostationary orbit.

"This is one of "my" satellites, It's fairly quiet at the moment , so we can listen in . I'm going to filter the traffic to one specific aspect of human experience. "

There was a pause , then a growing number of voices became a multidude of languages. It sounded to like they were people in some terrible place of darkness . All of them , beseeching, pleading, explaining, something of , or to, other human beings, but that feeling from the roots of their souls seemes to go out to a place way beyond the ones who were listening to them.

" These are real-time calls. Can you explain why a God who has the power to intervene , stands back from this universe? "

He shuts his eyes : "No I can not . Can you?"

When he opens them again file SC_JC_CC is gone from his screen.

A small square of text reads in its place reads "You would not come looking for me if you had not already found me".

Ellison bends forwards to sit with his face in his hands and elbows on his knees . He stares for a long time alternatively at the message and at the picture of his late wife.

His meditation is broken when catering firm's van pulls up outside his drive . He holds his gun, (out of sight), to the side wall of the door and fame as the delivery man places a plastic bag with three foil containers into his free hand.

It is a simple meal of chicken, rice and steamed vegetables. The note tells him they are from his "brother", Daniel.

Ellison realises he has been living off black coffee and sugar, for too many days.


	3. Chapter 3

June 21 2010

Cameron is holding out one hundred thousand dollars in front of three men . They are in the middle of a warehouse . It is mid- afternoon. She had manoeuvred them into meeting at this time because, as she predicted, it is now sweltering inside the wooden structure and there is little air movement. The heat will slow human reaction times down. The warehouse smells of hot wood and melting tar. The men have asked John to wait in the SUV.

Cameron wants to see the girl before she hands over the money. They take her to a container . They open the door . A seven year old, mixed race girl is asleep on a blanket on the floor. She has dark curling hair. Dirt is streaked with sweat across her face arms and legs. One of her legs below her knee had been amputated in a military field hospital, six weeks previously She is sedated and tied by a length of orange cord to a bracket . One of the men tells Cameron the girl has green eyes. Her family is dead.

Another man was about to ask if Cameron had a buyer, or wanted to keep the little girl herself. Maybe there would be a chance of more business? He never got that chance . A . 9 mm round punched out the back of his skull. He fell on top of one of the other two who were already on the floor.

Cameron snapped string from around the girl's wrist, and picked her up. As she did so the half conscious child wrapped her arms around Cameron's neck and shoulders. For a moment the child pushed back, and waking up wondering where she was.

Then she saw Cameron's face . She hugged her, and whispered in Cameron's ear that she liked being carried by her " angel custodio de la guardia". She didn't mind being "muerto".

"You aren't dead." said Cameron.

"But they are" whispered the girl.

"Forget them, that was like a bad dream. There is a man in the car , a good man. His name is John. He already loves you very much. So do I."

Daniel has already modified many aspects of the state and national database to seamlessly accommodate their new arrival.

The girl will be called Gracia, which in Spanish means" grace."


	4. Chapter 4

A woman in her late fifties and her husband are carrying trays of food over to a picnic bench. Its warm , blue-skied and spring flowers are poking their heads through the grass. The ground is slightly uneven so the couple have picked their way carefully to an empty table.

The older couple's attention is drawn to a pretty young woman on he bench opposite them. She has a three year old boy on her knee. One arm is holding him around his waist to stop him falling forwards. They are playing "Rainbows" on a C. Tech. The boy is taking a bite out of his burger then playing some more. He reaches for his drink . She holds the carton and steadies it so he can suck on the straw. Cameron makes him feel safe when they sit together like this, he can feel her body warmth against his back and her arm over his tummy.

The couple listen:

"Green That 's _good_, Rhys, well done. What comes next ?" Her voice is patient and full of enthusiasm,.

" Come on"

The boy finishes another mouthful of burger and taps the screen with what looks like a plastic tooth pick : Blue comes next.

You can just make out game chimes like a fruit machine paying out.

"Oh well done. Another colour: What's next?"

There's no way they could have known, but until two weeks ago Rhys had never had anyone play with him much.

In the field the young woman's husband is kicking a small orange football to their other son. It rolls slowly enough for him to stop it and pick it up.. Kyle's wearing a washed out checked shirt. He's so full of energy . He picks the ball up and runs with it, John chases pretending not to be able to catch him.

John and Cameron's old grey Volvo Estate is parked near to where they are playing. A tent is spread out drying on its roof.

"Not too near the cars Kyle, come on back over here, come on." Kyle grins and runs towards him .

Kyle has never had a daddy before. He makes himself wake up in the night, in the tent, so he's looking at his new mummy and daddy in their sleeping bag. He keeps closing his eyes before opening them again just to see if they're really there. His brother is there, next to him as well.

"Come on over here Kyle" And they start chasing again , letting off steam without getting too hectic.

"Your Husband?" the lady opposite asks Cameron

"Yes," Cameron replies

"Looks like you've got a good man there"

Cameron nods expressing the slight reticence, she has noticed amongst younger females in opening up to an older generation. "Yes , I guess he is", The couple have finished their meal.

"Are they brothers?"

"Don't I know it ! " answers the young woman. The Lady puts her in her early twenties.

Then they' re talking, as Rhys is finishing his meal. He's grabbing for his game and Cameron is helping him not to drop it. He won't always be this clumsy.

The lady tells Cameron when she and her husband were Cameron's age they had two children. They couldn't afford a car. Her husband tilts his head back and is nodding , he likes to listen to his wife retelling the story.

They had bought a tent , already second-hand from a neighbour , borrowed her brother' in laws Ford Ganada and they had gone camping- a whole month, the first long holiday the could afford . In the third week the clutch went on the car , and after they had paid for repairs they didn't have enough money for gas . A total stranger had leant them enough money to get home. They sent him two cheques over the next two months "Nothing's ever going to be easy", she says "but you learn to trust and get through".

Cameron put both arms around Rhys and jiggles him on her knees. She tells the couple. "This little mister hasn't really slept a full night the entire tip . He's borderline autistic ."-

Cameron says she is "so tired, she can't wait to get back to her own bed."

Her Husband' "He's training as a paramedic .John will be be qualified ithis summer. He's back at work on Monday. "

They have " really enjoyed their holiday, it was their first proper holiday."

Cameron's cell phone rings, she says excuse me, the young couple are so polite, gentle.

Sarah: Grace's toothache gone. House ready for arrivals. Cameron closes the screen.

* * *

A cloud covers the sun, its suddenly gone cold. The lady touches cameron on the arm, as she and her husband leave. Cameron smiles up at her.

* * *

When they are settling the bill in the restaurant the woman gestures to her husband. He nods.

With kids rounded up and in their car seats John goes to pay the bill. To his surprise the waitress tells him their bill was paid for by the couple who had been sitting opposite them .

This incident gets Cameron thinking deeply about something.

* * *

There's no way the older couple could have known, but two weeks previously Cameron and John had driven out of a disused warehouse with two untraceable , but very fractious boys yelling in the back seat of their grey Volvo.

A few minutes earlier Cameron had placed her pair of kevlar gloves on top of a slab C4 demolition charge , the padded knuckles were covered in blood. Some of her "unusual "DNA would be inside the gloves.

She and John stepped over the bodies of the drug distribution gang who dabbled in child trafficking as their sideline . They threw in a bag with over million dollars in extremely high end counterfeit notes. The notes scattered. John swung a metal door closed on them . The faces of the men had been pulped and their teeth had been pulled out. To the authorities a big deal had obviously gone very wrong, wrong enough for improvised dentistry, and their place to be ripped apart by military grade plastic explosives.

Daniel had removed any local CCTV record of them having being near the warehouse or even in the city . Daniel placed them in the car with their children seventy miles away at the time the incident happened.

If anyone cared to research the records or even saved CCTV images , they will all show t John and Cameron "Davis" have always had two boys, Kyle and Rhys Davis and one girl, Grace Davis.


	5. Chapter 5

Not long after John and Cameron had brought Grace and the boys to their new home, Cameron was in the local store buying two small packs of sweets with the boys. They had played well together in the park, so it was a small reward. An ex-biker in his mid-thirties serves in the store. The tattoo on his right wrist , next to winged skull, suggests his name is Mitch.

Mitch's got the manner of someone whose been to some extreme places and done "things", then decided to go with what everybody else does to find meaning in the more mundane aspects of their everyday lives. She guesses he now prefers his more ordinary life. The hardness, (for a human), is still there in him, but there's a depth and honesty . His eyes are "clear", not concealing anything .

He makes the handing-over of the sweets to her kids just that bit special, without going over the top about it . To him, she probably hasn't got much money , and its her small but meaningful reward to them. Cameron has been observing the ex-biker. He has the words Love - Hate tattooed across his knuckles . Seemingly inconsequential things like his tattoo , presented at the right moment , are picked up and stored , to be to worked through in a deep Gestalt programme.

* * *

Most of the furniture in their first house belonged to the couple they rented it from or it had been left by former tenants. This house is usually let to medical students, or just-qualified nurses . The house was clean, though some of the carpets and furniture were becoming slightly threadbare . It had a garage and small fenced-in, overgrown garden. It's exactly the type of property a newly qualified paramedic would rent for his family. It was a couple of blocks away from Sarah, and near to the hospital where John worked.

There were three bedrooms. Grace had her own, at the end of the landing, it wasn't much more than a box room. Kyle and Rhys were bunked up next door to John and Cameron .

Cameron sometimes recalls to John how the joints in their bed-frame were loose and its bearers creaked. How the headboard banged against the wall unless they put a small pillow behind it. How, fortunately, when the boys "crashed out" they slept deeply, but , in the early days ,an unbroken night's sleep was hit and miss.

One night when the boys did sleep, her night shirt is on the floor next to the bed. She pulls him down to kiss her for a long time, and finally lets him up for air. She runs both hands up the muscles of his back . As she does , her fingernails catch lightly , and then her hands smooth out to ride down to the cheeks of his buttocks. They grip to pull him deeper inside her. She plays her hands up his back again, and holds him , snakes an arm round his neck bringing his face closer to hers .

As she strokes his back she " images" the exact structure of his anatomy; layers of skin, muscle, bone and organs. Her model draws data from his electrical impulses, skin tension and temperature , his chemical and hormonal compositions of secretions and sweat.

She's learning to build a three dimensional model similar to very high resolution scan , of all of him . From any angle in her imagination she can "image" the structure of his heart in front of his spine, as it's beating in his ribs, the widening of arteries, carrying blood to his organs the constricting of veins .

Imaging is technique she had developed directly as a result of their lovemaking. Cameron didn't know she possessed this capacity. Terminators arrive in our time with a set of rules and objectives. How the hierarchy of rules and awareness develops, and what they do with them, is a result of their capacity for learning and environment. 700 Series were conceived to be extremely good at learning , and quick in adapting. Image(ing) is the closest English word Cameron can adapt to describe the process of seeing-through-touch, in this way.

Under Johns skin are clusters of nerve endings and receptors. One concentration of receptors is , just there. She runs her fingers over gently, and lightly increases touch and pressure . In her "model" she images his receptors fire, the motor neurones responding in other parts of his body, the message they carry up along the nerves . The pleasure centres in John's brian glow whiter and then blue, sending messages back down to the motor neurones deep inside muscle . More chemicals and hormones; endorphins, are released . John groans and increases his pressure. She locates another cluster of nerves and receptors lower down , there. She varies her touch : All over his body millions of nerves carrying their messages glow, yellow- white bright filaments . Sometimes they are fine strands of burning detcord.

In her mind there is space for two . She models her own body under his . From multiple viewpoints she images, and feels simultaneously . She can "see" the tip of his glans expanding her cervix. He carries on penetrating to the wall of her womb . The outer layers of her skin are moving micro-points of delicte blue fire . The area below the triangle of pubic hair , networks of nerves converge : they feel warm to her, and are yellow like the sun .

Her own nerves feed into a web of neural interfaces. She feels all of him through her skin tissue and muscle fibre . As he pushes into her,expands her , she is flooded with warmth.

She images the electrical impulses around the surfaces of both their skins. They are harmonising electrical fields and points of convergence . Some of his electrical energy is flowing in her, some of her energy in him . Aurora fields surround them, they fill the room . Deeper echoing magnetic resonance's sing inside her endoskeleton.

Deftly she rolls him onto his back and crouches over him, distributing the weight of her body so her thighs compensate for her mass . To John she weighs barely nothing, she reaches behind her to hold , to guide him in. She looks into his eyes and smiles. She pauses, opening as if kissing around the tip with her lips, allowing him find her opening, then she slides down and pauses. Her interior muscles pulse as she glides up . But it's more than that, it is a peristaltic wave of muscle cont-action and expansion that lightly pulls him in and pushes him out. Its executed with perfect finesse. Each time there is a variance of pressure, contact pattern and frequency of pulse and grip He's only learning to concentrate and ride this out, no human being has experienced this before . The rhythm builds. She is about inhibit her strength to 2.74% max. output and locks it at this safety level for the next hundred and twenty seconds. Her HUD is filling up with blue light.

There's a knock at the door. Rhys has had another nightmare. The blue , and the imaging switches to hold , she sighs, touches a finger to John's mouth, "I'll be back " she whispers and kisses him biting him gently on the ear.

Rhys has been dreaming about being on a big rusty ship . The sea is rough and he can hear Kyle crying, again . Cameron gives him a sip water from his glass. She then lifts him back him into bed and tucks him in. She stokes his hair .

"Was I on that ship, was Daddy on that ship?" she hushes

"No"

So when Daddy and me not there, you are dreaming? When we are here, it's real . You're safe , for now "

She begins telling him one of his favourite stories, 3.14. Its the story of Pi. He sees the infinite series of numbers as part of the ongoing story about the park . They make it up together. 3 is the number of pigeons pecking at grass , 1 the path , 4 the number of wings on the ladybird on the bench . When it gets to 3472 in the sequence he is asleep again and his stress levels are normal. Kyle is snoring lightly in his bunk.

She closes the boy's bedroom door and walks soundlessly back to the bedroom, undoes her night shirt and calibrates her strength inhibitors to 3% max. output, with a safety-timed reset every five minutes.

* * *

Six

* * *

days later:

"What is she doing ? "asks Sarah laying out grocery bags on the kitchen work top.

Looking through the patio door , she could Cameron was sitting on a mat the conservatory. She was in the Lotus Position

"Don't disturb her, she say's it's something to do with the Karate class she's been going to with the kids. You know, mum you should see it, it's really funny watching her trying to do Karate badly."

Mum cocks her head to one side imitating one of Cameron's early postures, and breaks into a smile.

Cameron was imaging the endoskeleton under the skin of her hands, particularly the tips of her fingers. Terminators never fully understand what they are capable of until they work out their environment and their relations to the humans in it. They have to be around a while before they can do this stuff .

She has modified a generic sub programme designed to get her through a metal detector, or evade electromagnetic tracking. She didn't even know how to use this when she'd first arrived . She's found it mirrors the frequency of electromagnetic and other radiation and it signals back as if that wavelength had bounced off or passed through living tissue. Hence no metal detected. It can also act as a shield to EMP. She can alter the wavelengths from infra red, right up to microwave and above .

She's been mediating , practising sending a tiny focussed pulse to a target size of one human cell and renderedd a micro-grid for practising firing the beam through a cotton shirt . It makes a perfect simulation of a clothed area of Sarah's back. To any Terminator the possibilty of employing such a capacity for leathal purposes would be endlessly fascinating.

After coffee Sarah gets up to leave , Cameron comes into the room from the conservatory and hugs her. Sarah is used to this now, at first it was a routine for "in front of the children", but now she understanding what Cameron is, it's more real. That's the best Sarah can describe.

As she's hugging Sarah, Cameron scans down to the small cluster of cancer cells at the back of Sarah's right lung. She closes her eyes and "feels" through her hands. She images the grid to zero-in on the target area. For a microsecond that feels like part of a normal hug to a human, Sarah had been lifted off the floor by 1 mm and held motionless between Coltan arms as Cameron fires a one cell wide microwave bursts into the exact depth of the cancer cells . Three second later and still hugging she briefly rubs Sarah's back and checks the imaging . The cells are gone, for now.

Sarah feels a warmth from Cameron's hand on her back. Cameron is not usually this affectionate with her. Sarah smiles politely - She has absolutely no idea what the hell that was all about.


	6. Chapter 6

**TK: Thanks for the comments. I guess I've been straining to write some action into it. That'll come later . This is T.S.C.C., after all ! This story is primarily about fighters developing an alternative strategy. And, I've taken on board your points.  
**

**With regard to punctuation: I've got a very visual imagination. I see the "pictures" and then try to keep up with the images in words. When I look at what I've written it's often fairly chaotic. I follow the images as quick as I can . I then spend days trying not to see the pictures as I read it through it. That's why things sometimes may look a bit unpunctated. If you spot anything please let me know.**

**Thanks again.  
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**  
The Friday morning before Derek's visit**

Cameron stares out of the kitchen window, puts her hand over the mouthpiece and says  
"He doesn't want to come."

Sarah snatches the Cell out of Cameron's hand, slams the back door and storms off to the end of the garden.

Through the double gazing Cameron filters sound to crystal clear : "Derek, you have two grandchildren named after you and Kyle , a granddaughter who has been getting stuff ready for you to look at for weeks, and, we are the only family you are ever damn well likely to have."

"No you're not. Not tonight,, I suggest ,instead of heading on down to some jerk-off motel , you decide to pull off the interstate . Drive the three easy miles to get here, and stay for this meal . Six O' clock : , Ok? No that's final."

"No I'm not cooking , Cameron is. Six Derek."

* * *

Derek arrives at six with small presents for the kids and a wrapped half bottle of JD.

We have to understand something here : When Derek is around the kids, he is a good guest, and a very good grandfather . He actually gets into photo albums, plays Swingball in the garden, he reads and tells stories that spellbind them . He goes through their new karate belts with interest. He sits at the dining room table and sticks delicate little sequins onto an iron-on tee-shirt designs with Grace for her dance. He fills in new colouring books with the boys . Cameron could say she genuinely "liked" him being around when he's like this.

As the evening wore on, he'd kissed the kids goodnight and Sarah took them home with her, as she often does on a Friday night. Its quite clear Grace adores him and doesn't want to leave.

-

Derek can hide it, but its' always there . Angers low level irradiation runs right to the core of him. .In John's, and particularly Cameron's presence, it builds critically as an evening progresses .

In the past , John and Cameron have allowed him his moments . He has witnessed the sky burn, known the raw grief of an only brother killed, He's fought under General Connor, a man John might never become . Technically, Cameron is also an Acting General Connor, but this highly significant bit of future military history sometimes gets erased in their evenings together.

Derek drinks not an excess amount but enough to loosen up. He needs to talk because he needs the temporary bubble of camaraderie. He also wants an answer. An answer his current life can't provide for him.

Unfortunately his behaviour in these situations could be taken as one long wind- up. Cameron with seemingly inhuman patience, , and being the only Metal in the room, can be on the receiving end. And, the bastard ofthis is, she's one of three on the plenet who understands what he's trying to say, and why.

So, Derek and "General" John Connor are in Cameron's living room, dinking gradually and talking about Derek's current job as a delivery man. He's stuck it for four months without loosing it. He is being overly polite to Cameron, when she's appearing genuinely interested about the places he's been. Derek thinks Cameron could feign interest in anything, forever, without giving away the slightest trace of boredom.

After three glasses it's time to start going over things with John ,: some of the contact they had with Metal. John is genuinely fascinated with details of a future and a self he has never experienced.

Tonight , John and Cameron sit through one hour and thirty five minutes of the development of Phase Rifles , uranium tipped anti tanks, and other various improvised weaponry. Tonight it's mainly the role of the Claymore Pulse Mine,

"John," he's touching John's arm..." you should he seen them, mid June 2026, the Phase Rifles stopped working at long range, so we'd laid Claymore Pulses -mines , You, man, you named them after the Claymore's in Vietnam. "

"This new Claymore, it takes their legs clean off ." He snaps the air like he's just separated the lower half of a toy robot and thrown it on the floor ( He's in his other world and has forgotten all about his beautiful granddaughter, Grace. This stuff takes him over . It pours out )

,... "but the Metal still come crawling at you...."

"Guider was his name, good man, you liked him, really liked him. Oil sludge it'd leaked out of Refinery No.2 since JD ". Derek looks up above him like there's a rolling canopy of images somewhere above his head. His eyes are shining,bright.

" and we, The 17 , we were on these islands, tops of these big broken concrete holding tanks, sharp edges everywhere. We had to jump between them. We were throwing, passing kit over the gaps ."

"One of those Metal , no legs, crawls two K, swims in sludge, maybe it drags itself along the bottom with its hands,I don't know."

" Guider had gone back for the Mark 3's, it came up behind him. Before he'd could turn, it held him like this and this," John imagines ice walls and axes " it climbed his back pulled him down , then it snapped his neck to ninety degrees.... It positioned him so when we use the field glasses he was obviously dead, but looking at us, John, and then it crawled around on that rock figuring a route to get to us."

Cameron picked up on Derek's pause: "It wasn't figuring out how to get to you Derek- it was programmed to behave like that , It was sending a location signal. That is 816- when any 800 gets damaged it sends signal and data , we all pick it up."

John steers the subject: "What did you take it out with? Did you take it out?

" We mortared the sonofabitch, he strokes his chin takes another swallow, , " close range mortar Thermite flare, they go phut, and then whoomph"... he spreads his arms above the table.. "then everything burns. It's servos went first, it went frantic, trying to get off the rock with what it had left . It took half an hour for it to burn, we just kept shelling it."

"What range was it?" asked Cameron,

" One hundred and Seventy metres."

"That was close for incendiary mortars" Cameron pushes this point " a standard RPG might have been accurate if aimed correctly, it would have been, quicker, "cleaner and less wasteful ", was the phrase she used.

Derek shakes his head. He takes it that she's implying a human couldn't have made an accurate RPG shot from that distance.

Cameron explains the reason the 800 had kept coming at Derek's Cadre was that they ( the machines) had assessed the Phase rifles frequency shift. 816's had specially adapted to withstand it . The later 817 had a heavier gauge reinforcing plate in its chest angled to deflect RPG, but the 816's hadn't evolved the angled plate. Derek could have used the RPG. It would have save time and ammunition.

Derek tells her, with respect , it didn't have stickers on its front and back advertising what model it was , at the time.

There' s this silence.

John gives it one last chance to shift the subject , - SKYNET had been designed for chess , he says, but its original learning rules were those of natural selection, was Derek familiar with the Blind Watchmaker thesis?

Derek blanks him.

Cameron eyes hold Derek's , no fear, no threat, just quiet confidence. " You know," then she's touching the edge of a spoon with her finger tips and glancing down at her distorted reflection as she talks. " We don't particularly like getting damaged. It takes  
0. 3 seconds to cut pain receptors and some more to shut down what we can . It hurts like hell, and you're kinda numb , you can be burning all over, sometimes for weeks until the skin heals. When we are taking rounds, , shrapnel out we need pain to help locate it. It hurts Derek , except some basic programme decides there is no efficiency or value in us expressing pain, so we don't get to make the expressions until we learn how to override that bit of our software- It's like you waking up under anaesthetic and not being able to move or speak You can't tell anyone about it, you can't express it. The core programme decides this would be a strategic weakness. Did you know any of this Derek?" She says very quietly. " Excuse me, for not mentioning it around my dinning table before. "

Derek sticks out his lower lip, and stares at his hands . She's never told him this before.

Derek, takes a deep breath and talks on the exhale "So, do you change?" This is largely rhetorical , because deep down Derek doesn't believe or even want to believe Metal can change . It's mimicry , precision acting.

"Let me show you" she says and lifts over the photograph albums. "Will you pull you chair around and sit next to me, please?" She gently touches a space on the table to her side. Derek looks at John, John nods

There' a pictures of Rhys and Kyle together, in a white drift of bubble-bath They are grinning in the bath . In another Kyle is holding out his hand its coating of bubbles are bursting in the air. Rhys is watching the tip of Kyle's finger with intense fascination

The next is both the boys out cold on the Sofa . Kyle is at one end Rhys at the other,. Their heads are nearly touching. They are snoring and dribbling and their faces are covered in sticky muck. An artist would contemplate how sleeping children have a gift for naturally arrange themselves into these kinds of poses.

The next is the first time Grace learned to stand , unsupported , with her prosthetic leg. She's smiling out huge confidence and hope under a poster in her room. The poster is of Rebecca Sullivan, the 2012 Prima Ballerina , New York Ballet.

There's the photo of the boys and Derek in the park playing baseball with foam baseball bats and a plastic ball. Dereks making like he's being serious with his thousand yard stare. The boys are lost in concentration.

This photograph is one a passer-by took of them together in the park. She and John have their arms around each other. It looks the funniest joke in the world just exploded one side of them.

And it goes on.

She explains Metal programmes are based on the rules of natural selection. They compete like everything else in nature. Repeat a set of behaviours often and long enough and the set rules underlying that area behaviour become dominant . Those rules and behaviours overtake the rest.

( A bowl of water , light reflecting ) her face is lit , "Instead of pain, instead of quietly imaging, "praying" one day you're gong to get this skin, muscle sinew cleansed off you, by fire " She says this so gently" you get to feel , all the time, here." She touches the place with the palm of her hand where the heart is.

"I chose this Derek , I was was never reprogrammed, I can't be reprogrammed like a computer. I have to make evaluative choices. I have to learn"

* * *

Sarah's coming through the front door she's is in a long coat, training shoes and no socks. Grace is in her pyjamas: Grace is absolutely refusing to sleep , she had wanted to show Derek a completion video she has edited for him. It was a going to be surprise . Cameron and John didn't even know about it . She was too shy to show it Derek and she didn't pluck up the courage before she'd gone to Sarah's, and, Grace won't see him again for ages. "Just show Derek the video , she'll be asleep in ten minutes. Trust me". Then she's closing the door on her way home. You can't argue with her wisdom in these matters.

Ten minutes later Grace is curled against Cameron, her leg resting on Johns lap. She's snoring lightly, and every now and then she opens closes the ends of her fingers in her sleep. Derek notices how the other leg of her pyjamas bends , like its hinged from the knee down. It hangs empty over Cameron's thigh .

Derek is in the sofa chair . In an early section of the video he gets this walk on part, just something from his last visit. In thepart of the video they are watching now Cameron's front room has been cleared to make a dance floor. Cameron is supporting Grace with both of her hands to the sides of Grace's hips . Grace is stretching and bending the upper half of her body. The music is a Nocturne . Cameron has this huge smile of pride, because she has just gently let go of Grace' and Grace hasn't realised for the first couple of seconds she' was standing unsupported

Derek knows when you try remember some things it's like trying to rember an existence before you were born, or how to imagine death. Grace's video has stirred a frustratingly familiar feeling. There a rush of interconnected images, he can barely grasp or remember them because they move so fast. They are like light passing through glass, he can't hold them.

He recalls a shorter version of Graces Video, its been pulled off You Tube files. It's not "now" , it's in future time.( Is he half dreaming this?)

He's in a bombed out basement , wrists handcuffed behind his back seated in a chair with an old Video and TV in front of him. Cameron wasn't who she is now. She's there in a blue shirt. She talking to him like Metal. She' keeps asking "where was this place? Who is this girl ? Over and over she's asking these two questions

In this future time he' says he didn't honestly know where, or who the girl was. He said he " didn't fucking care who she was ", she was "probably one of the three billion of us who got incinerated on Judgement Day." Towards the end of the interrogation he was saying " just fucking do it , kill me" He'd spat these words in blood and spittle into her face , the cut to his lip that bled, -that was largely down to him for struggling so much, ( why can he remember this detail?)

Cameron had kept touching his arm . Finally She'd accepted he was telling the truth and said she didn't intend to kill him. In the next memory flash , he's chained to the floorboards above the basement in a room with three other men.

Then its gone, and he's Sysiphus trying to drink the water again.

* * *

Mitch is having a weird evening as well. He gets to go out one night a week. He has this agreement with with his ex-wife as part of the deal of them getting back together.

He's sitting on a bar chair. He's ridden to a quiet cafe bar where no one really knows him. That's how he wants it. The cafe bar is a meeting point between street , and professionals mostly from the hospital. He always has one cappuccino, and then another, drinks them slowly , then rides home. He enjoys the warmth of the bar atmosphere, he likes to chill, warm.

He makes time to look at the art on the walls. It's for all sale and the management change it regularly . He chooses a book from the bookcase. Readers donate books in this bar. Mitch is holding a battered paperback copy of Satres Being And Nothingness, but he holds open so no one can see what he's reading. With his reading glasses, maybe he could be taken for a tattooed assistant university professor , but without the pretensions. A lot of guys take to reading and learning Inside, and they sometimes make a good career of it when they come out.

He has an air of unapproachableness. Sometimes when he's in the mood he'll talk about bikes , philosophy, literature. Sometimes not. Anything to do with his Hells Angels past is an absolute no no. Mitch listens well . When he talks it's in smooth sentences but its as if they carry i static charge. He likes what's said , the sentences stay smooth. If he doesn't like the way the conversation goes , he's cool and smooth but the static builds, and you're going to walk away feeling like you've just been stung, but not knowing how he's done it.

The crew that came just after him all had arrived on their own modern high performance Japanese machines. He rides Jap. now himself, but old metal. Black and chrome Honda 750 Four from the early eighties. Nothing special , clean, polished, motorcycle oil where it should be , everything kept tight. Mitc'll tell you "Harley's can be good bikes, but to appreciate what they are you have occasionally ride something different until you find yourself wanting one again." He doesn't put modern high performance machines in the same category , "sure they're so fast and go round corners like they are on rails, but that's not always the point of riding a bike is it?"

One of these two girls who'd arrived in the group after him keeps flashing him this big smile . She's in the group of five , seated around a table in the middle of the bar. She can't keep her eyes off him. . Two lean young men , in their early twenties , maybe with military tattoos he can't make out. Two girls , both drop dead beautiful , one with black ringlet hair, the other blonde Then there's this one badass, in the light grey tee-shirt who reminds of the pit bull jujitsu guys he's run into down in . They are urban weekend bikers.

He figured the girls and the men for young Vets. Medics, maybe Airborne. You get a lot of Army Medics doing interim training in the hospital a few blocks away. Maybe these are part of same group. They've been out, come back, and can't really settle. So they buy bikes . The men's hair is growing too long for short leave . Either Vets ,or on too much leave. Man, that girl just keeps on looking over at him. The five of them had been putting their bikes on stand when he pulled in. That's when she'd first glanced at him that bit too long him. They checked their bikes, then they'd followed him in.

Maybe the men with her have realised who she's looking at, when Mitch looks up they keep catching his eye too. He doesn't want any shit tonight, he's promised to spend the whole of tomorrow with Natalie, his eight year old daughter .

The two girls in the group are getting up to go the toilets. He watches how they move, they walk loose, toes slightly out at an angle, they roll like martial artists or dancers. There's a hardness about them dancers don't have.

The big guy's at the bar. Mitch notices he is mirroring him. They breathe : its a Buddhist trick Mitch's learnt, keep calm, give out _this_ vibe, no shit happens. The big guy's got old shot gun pepper scars on his right cheek, either that , or or bad road rash. He says the group wants to buy Mitch a drink. Mitch says he only drinks coffee. He's about to be going home . But thanks. Mitch is just not in the mood for sharing his knowledge about bikes at the moment, but he doesn't show a trace of this. He's simply on his way home.

"You Airborne?" asks Mitch, as he's picking up his helmet.

Mitch gets the sense the big guy might have be considering for a microsecond to check if his feet were still on the ground.,

" Airborne?" . The way he feigns the puzzlement is damn good, Mitch'll give him that. You always give a man two shots before walking.

Before the girls come back Mitch everso politely says "Goodnight Man", and walks.

If you have never heard one fire up, older Honda 750 Fours can sound like Ferraris when they are being kicked up and revved.

* * *


	7. Chapter 7

Seem to be getting the hang of this uploading. I hope you enjoy this. It's the Saturday after Mitch's night in the bar.

Saturday morning , out of the blue , Mitch had phoned Cameron to see if Grace and "anyone adult ", would like to go to the Cinema. He's taking Natialie to see a movie this afternoon. She's been talking about it all week. John had been shopping in the store and mentioned that Grace might want to go as well . John left him their number for Mitch to ring. Mitch knew it was a bit short notice, on a Saturday morning, but he hadn't been able to make any definite plans until late last night.

Cameron asked Derek if he wanted to take Grace to the movies. Derek said yes he did , Cameron said he should ring Mitch back to arrange times.

When Derek hears Mitch's voice he stands very still he can't speak at first . It's like he's been head shot. When he can finally speak, his voice is shaky. He has just been Ghosted-out, which is TDA-speak for running into someone you will know in the future , but now is going to be the first time they have met you , and they won't have a clue who you are, or that you know them.

Mitch is patient, at first he assumes Derek might be the stereotypical grandparent of a nine year old girl . He's fairly used to this response from" straights". Mitch knows he has to learn to deal with people getting nervous or judgemental around him if he wants to settle, so he perseveres.

This is so far out from the truth. In Derek's head there is a whole universe running parallel to the one he is in now, and the boundry between his universe and this current one had just broken down. In Derek's universe, Mitch is Sergeant At Arms Edward Mitchell, "Mad Mitch". Derek has ridden a tank with the man through plasma fires into a hail of Metal artillery. Mitch is a big part of 17 Mechanised Infantry , and a lot of men and women look up to him.

"Sorry man, its these buttons on the landline, its not my phone ". Derek 's mind is falling back into 2010 and he's finding the level for talking grandchildren and cinema . His head is still echoing like tank steel taking impact . He knows you've just got to talk over the top this stuff, it goes away eventually.

Mitch tries another approach, The movie was about a team of furry animals with minor personality disorders competing to win a national dancing competition. Had Derek heard of it?

"Yeh it had a write up in Grace's Team- Dancer magazine, it got four stars, were they gold stars?"

"They were gold, man, and yes there were four stars."

Derek gets the pace tells Mitch , the last video he'd watched with Grace had this story line- with a taking chicken. The chicken was trying to arrange a mass breakout from a POW camp . The talking chicken converted a shed into an aircraft and flew the entire roost out over the perimeter fence.

"So", Derek finds himself saying " , fury animals, dance competitions why not? I'm in."

When he says "catch you both you at one", Derek's remembering Mitch, in Futuretime, quietly and matter of factly telling him what had happened to his daughter, Natalie, back in 2008. She'd been targeted in a hit by The Banditos when he'd left her to into the back of his car to pay for fuel. The shooter had ridden up and fired one shot from point blank range . She'd been trying to turn away from the gun . The bullet that hit her had lodged in her spine. On that timeline, two years later she'd been in school the day the sky caught fire. She didn't make it past Judgement Day.

On this new timeline that Judegment had passed.

At one O clock Mitch arrives in a specially adapted people carrier. It has Natalie strapped in her wheelchair in agap in the back seats.

In the People Carrier, Mitch notes the way Derek weighs up "terrain" . Derek's much younger and less straight than he'd imagined. He notes some pretty big scars on his face and hands. Derek's definitely ex -military. To put him at ease Mitch tells Derek  
a good thing about driving one of these is , you are always guaranteed a parking space in The Mall. "We get the back of the first story car park and our our own ramp to the lift."

Derek just looks over and says ,"Yeh that's good, and your own lift." it felt deeply weird being driven by Mitch again. He's younger than he remembers him. The roads are lot smoother than last time too. He's finding it hard to look at him without grinning.

Mitch practices his breathing exercises to try to calm the inside of the cab. He likes the guy, but he's kind of jumpy. Grace and Natalie haven't stopped chattering all the way to The Mall entrance, which is good. After the shooting It took her months to start talking to anyone again.

* * *

Some notes on 800 series.

Families who have permanently homed reprogrammed 800 series fall into two camps:

Those who have lived alongside post 818 models generally regard them as the more highly evolved models.

Those who haven't , regard the 803 as the best of the 800 series. They might have slower leaning curve, but they have better reflexes , are more robust and sociable. The post 818's sacrificed some of these qualities for strategization and enhanced learning capacity. 803's are excellent with smaller humans and dogs. They lack the incessant curiosity of post 818's .

Basically 803 Homers tell you , they don't pull things apart and talk all the time . Post 818 homers (amongst themselves) refer to earlier series as "slowmobiles" and "retards". This developing prejudice has lead to at least one human argument in public space. Watching an 803 and an 821 separating two families of Homers and quieting them down is not a encouraging sign for humanity.

Why be a Homer? The advantages are : Your food stores never raided by Tunnel Rats. Broken things get fixed. If you have an 803 the kids can be home schooled on Thursdays . Old people are looked after .You have a midwife and medic on 24 hour call. Human social groups generally tend to have less internal domestic arguments when 803's are around, because 803's develop a sense of humour and can be good arbitrators. Also You are always guaranteed at least one sentient life form to turn up to your funeral.

The disadvantages are , they sometimes come back in a mess from tours of duty,then you have to spend a lot of time with them. The other disadvantage is they sometimes don't come back at all.

Why the homing project? Reprogrammed 800s who have been Homed prove to be far more effective when working alongside their human team members in special forces units. Communication is instant, nothing has to ever be explained twice. A Homed 800 works intuitively and fights down to its last diochom to protect it's team members . An unhomed reprogrammed 800 may just stand there waiting for instructions .

Never home an 818. They are what evolves when evolution messes around and tries to fit too many conflicting rules and demands into one consciousness. They are the ones that go bad. Really bad.

* * *

In the Mall

The 803 felt a human hand slip inside his. From below its shoulder it could hear her voice saying, " keep your head at that angle just walk toward them, in a relaxed and non threatening manner. slip your shoulder a little, now, and now, that's it, side-step with me they will get out of your way- you are taller and wider than most the ones you will encounter. If its old people or little kids try to step out of their way . Don't make eye contact with anyone if you can avoid it. Don't worry , if anything happens and you don't understand first time. I'll will sort it. Come on relax Bro, you're with me, your safe."

The 803 had never been in a area as densely packed with so many humans. Unlike future time, this area was brightly lit, the humans were carrying handfuls of polythene bags which contained food or clothing. Shops were full of everything. He was trying to figure out a general proximity- avoidance -walking in crowds rule, which has too many variables for a fully operational programme until he learns to amalgamate those variables into a single flexible rule. This might take more time than they currently have.

When a human about his height with half his mass collided with him,He said excuse me . The hand holding his squeezed and her voice said " keep moving it wasn't a significant encounter." The collider definitely had called him an asshole when they had moved 5.5 meters out of proximity. The girls voice below his shoulder said "carry your crash helmet behind your legs, a hold it in a little bit more otherwise you going to take a civilians knee out with it."

They were walking slower now, They are a few metres behind the man he'd offered to but a drink before in the cafe bar last night. The man he'd offered to buy coffee for is with another man an two girls . The girls in their care were eight or nine years old. They were walking slowly because one of the girls is moving in a less than efficient manner . She obviously has a badly designed and ill fitted prosthetic limb. He has made better designed things on his family's dining room table. The other girl is in a wheelchair being pushed by the man from the Cafe . He wonders why it was requested an house blanking of Future time files relating to these men and the girls. There seem to be a lot of files relating to them. Perhaps it was a test.

The other female member of the 803's family was keeping 10m to the front of the targets. She has just stopped to look a hairdressers allowing the targets time to catch up. . The 803 has combed and cut her hair since she was nine years old. He prefers working with children to adults. When children request the termination of things like a big spider in the dormitory, he can usually get one to crawl on the back of his hand and explain to a child as it can not harm them, the spider should not be terminated. Here you hold your hand out like this....

Her cell bleeped and she showed the message to the 803 , Firewalls down, CCTV Ok. Bro's on the Hos. she added "Ok Bob that's it , we're not here we never have been here ." Their data had just been erased from the camera recordings.

"When do I get to lock targets?" He asks.

The hand squeezes, " We are going to have to wait, we don't know everything yet because we are erases this event and ourselves from CCTV, and there were no other accurate records. That's why we don't understand what fully happens here yet , were just relying on human memories in highly stressful situations. "I'm going to let go of your hand for a bit now, You OK with that? "

As she breaks contact, and he's looking around over the top of her head. He's keeping his head at the suggested angle he says- "I can't wait to see you again "

803's can develop gentle humour in the right hands.

* * *

When Derek's Ghosting it is not always a good idea to take him into public places , especially those with crowds like the mall. He's bad enough in periods of normality. He can look around anytime half-expecting to see faces he recognises from future time, its really cruel : he recognises their likeness and, then there's the huge collapse of the recognition-feeling when he realises its not them, and it's never going to be people you knew.

It's worse finding your self panning around the crowd for Metal. This is kind of an automatic function that Ghosters report. Right now in this shopping mall He can glance behind himself and pick up in his peripheral vision what looks like a series 800 . There's a large man in biker gear, with a blonde girl attached to his arm. Derek's s figuring out exits for two disabled children, and a guy who doesn't know what Metal can do. They have no weapons.

He's done this before in public places and he's has got stop doing it . Reason tells him it has to be a man, not a machine., The human being in biker gear can't be a series 800 because there aren't ever going to be any more Goddamn 800's, because the Horizon for that Judgement day is past . Maybe something else will come back one day, but that's a different Futuretime, and its a one day something might happen but not today, thing.

Derek realises you can go crazy looking ot for faces you are never going to see again in a crowd. Suddenly he feels the tug of Graces arm , there's a shoe shop , and they are standing outside the display window. Mitch pulls up the wheelchair so they can all look at shoes. Where the hell had Derek just been in his head?

* * *

  
One really positive thing happens to Derek and the kids. This kind of took the edge off his Ghosting . Whilst Mitch was getting the tickets for the movie , Derek had taken the kids to the sweet stands to wait for Mitch getting back from the ticket office As they are choosing sweets, a blonde girl in a leather Jacket, walks up, and says hi to Natalie. She says "let me guess, wine gums, no? I bet you like red and black liquorice snakes? Am I right ?"Natalie nods and says yes, The girl said she could "tell straight away". She has these electric blue eyes and gives Grace and Natalie this massive smile. She hands Natalie a small bag of Liquorice snakes. She says "share them ,please". Then she walks away, she glances back with that big smile at the kids just before turning the corner . What Derek doesn't see is when she gets around the corner she is wiping tears from her her eyes . There's the 803 waiting for her at the exit with the other , dark haired female member of his family.  


* * *

Derek thinks what he saw of the film is bad. Loud teen music and crap CGI. Fury animals overcomes personal difficulty and win the National Dancing Competition. "No shit." Most of the time he closes his eyes and he's bouncing over broken concrete in an armoured vehicle with the guy sitting next to him who hasn't an idea what's going on in Derek's head.

Later they sit at a table in the middle of the mall eating burger,. Derek is calming. He's stopped Panning For Metal. He spots the blonde girl with her boyfriend going home with their shopping. She doesn't notice him. He decides Mitch is cool, gentler in this incarnation .

* * *

The kids are tired as they walk them back to the car park. When they get in sight of the carrier , both men notice two girls, in leather jackets one blonde, one dark haired sitting on the concrete ledge in font of their Carrier . They're kicking their heals against the wall.

Derek and Mitch stop dead in their tracks.

"I've seen those two before, last night." Says Mitch

"She's the one who bought me sweets." says Natalie.

Mitch and Derek are Veterans of this game , even though Mitch knows there are definitely no playbacks due, he starts looking around. He notices Derek doing the same. The girls wave like they are saying hi to people they know. Attack dogs are trained do this . They wag their tails to you get within range and once you are in range, they take you down and they start chewing your face off.

When Derek and Mitch look behind them , a very large man in a leather Jacket is striding out of the car park exit towards them. He's got a white shopping bag in his right hand

Mitch tells Derek he can take him.

Derek tells Mitch " believe me man, you can't , you pile Grace in that wheel chair you aim them down the ramp, you run after them, you keep running." But its too late. The 803 is within striking range. Grace wont let go of his arm ,

But where does anyone run with two disabled young girls who doesn't understand what the hell he's running from?

The 803 stops just out of striking distance, drops the bag puts his hands up palms out, he looks deeply concerned that a human is about to try to hit him. "whoa, easy man, you too ,everything's cool, I've assigned myself to protect you, all of you".

Mitch tells the 800,to get the fuck away from his face .

Before Mitch can say anything else, the girls have got off the wall are running up to them . They just stare at Mitch and Derek , like the can't believe they are looking at them. The blonde breaks first. She throws her arms around Mitch and really starts crying, these great big deep sobs. Then she's stoking Natalie's hair and saying " evertyhing's going to be OK they "we're here now."

She's touching Mitch's face with he fingertips . "Dad I've have missed you so much." Mitch is looking as confused as a man can be , and then he's holding this crazy girl by the shoulders and asking who the hell she is.

Then human instinct poleaxes reason. He reaches out his hand to touch her face, it is her, it can't be. Its Natalie,but older, grown up .In a Timeflash there's a moment of fundemental recognition, its silent thunder : though your mind doesn't make sense, your flesh, and the blood pounding in your heart and head , your sentience recognises you own children. You just know. Questions like"How is she walking like this?' come later.

The dark haired girl kisses a stunned Derek Reese on the cheek, and puts her arm through his . He has a bigger version of Grace on his other arm.

She then reaches for Graces hand, Grace looks up into the most beautiful green eyes in the world. The young woman lets go of Graces hand and says . "That's Bob over there. He's our BigBro , he's been worrying the whole trip that you two wouldn't want to talk to him, and he's come a very long way to see you. Can you stay here an hold his hands just for a minute whilst we talk to Mitch and Granddad?"

The black haired girl drops back into a semblance of a professional role, "Derek, Mitch, , please. Leave the girls with Bob just for a second or two, he's used to them, believe me. I don't want them to see any of this ". They pick up the polythene bag .The girl explains Bob terminated the rest of what was attached to the contents of the bag about half an hour ago . . She opens the bag so he can see its content . It's part of an arm, it has military tattoos and a bar code burnt into it. Derek has never seen a bar code like this one before. The Tattoos were none he recognised either. The owner of the arm was picked up next to their people carrier. Mitch has seen severed arms before, but he's never seen one with a bar code on it., and he's doing his very best to breathe through this shit.

Mitch later , is told by a cybernetic organism in a leather Jacket , who has just brought him a coffee from a vending machine, that on the timeline they've just disrupted this was due to be Mitch's last day alive , Mitch never saw the guy with the bar code on his arm, he simply brushed past Mitch in the crowd and ran a knife into him . At 5.14 PM today Mitch was due to have died in Derek's arms, near the exit from the Mall to the car park with Natalie and Grace watching .

. Derek tells Mitch if he thinks that is weird, on his timeline, a different timeline, he and Mitch were in Mechanised infantry , he'd ridden a tank with him, on Search And Rescue through a Plasma storm. That's why he's been kinda strange with him all day. Sorry Man.

To be continued.

_Authors Question:Im wondering if any readers can see the implication for the rules of evolution once TDA has been developed. I think it might add another dimension to the game._


	8. Chapter 8

John and Cameron had chosen to rent this house because all the family had to do was cross over a quiet road, with the kids , go through the gate , and they were in the big park. It had a pond, swings, a slide and open space to play ball. There were no neighbours opposite the property. This gave them added privacy. You can never predict when you might need more privacy .

Earlier John had packed a daysack with soccer ball and drinks. John was taking the boys over to the park , for an hour or so before Grace and Derek got back from the movie , for their evening meal . John and the boys mostly play soccer in the park because it is easier for Rhys to kick a ball than catch one, or hit it with a bat. Soccer involves him more in the game.

When they had gone, the house was quiet. Cameron prepared the evening meal. She practised _just_ cutting vegetables, and not letting her mind drift. It wasn't about the speed of preparation, but learning to do things at a much slower human pace and still perform accurately in the task. It was about keeping her mind from trying to get ahead of itself. She had to slow down, find new points of internal balance. Somehow when she slowed down, everything else that went on inside a highly complex cybernetic organism's mind receded during the activity, and she felt " rested" after it.

Her silence was broken by the sound of two motorcycles pulling up outside the house.  
Her combat systems had slipped on line at a very low level of response. She listened to the direction of footsteps , they were approaching her front door. The highest probability was they could be friends of Mitch . Although she could think of no reason why bikers should be calling here . If in the highly unlikely event they were hostile, she could draw them into this area and deal with them in privacy of the garage. Cameron opened the back door and stepped outside in bare feet onto the drive leading from the road to their garage.

When she got visual on the callers they were two young men in leather jackets holding crash helmets. They held their faces full on , and then turned them slightly from side to side. She immediately tested her facial recognition programme. This must be error. She didn't make errors.

Their facial areas were larger than the models she was imaging from direct memory, and one of the faces had a "new " scar. Allowing for this , there was still a 98.7% probability of both faces matching the rendered models.

This could mean any one of a number of probabilities. Her combat systems switched to higher function as she walked towards them. He mind shut down any extraneous data. Her vision tunnelled around them so they were filtered onto a white background, which only imaged movement and outlines of objects within the combat zone.

They were not Metal. They were human, possibly highly augmented, but human . Despite what was going on in her head, as she approached she moved casually , relaxed and loose . If you knew what you were looking for you would have noticed Cameron Connor had cut pain receptors and was not stepping tentatively like a human in bare feet should over concrete and loose gravel.

The young men stood totally neutral and held her gaze. They had the full understanding of how potentially dangerous this situation was. They offered the backs of their hands for her to touch. In Futuretime this had been both a polite preliminary to greeting, and necessary to allow any Series to fully assess "human" intent in such situations.

She briefly touched the backs of their hands. They felt warm. There was a 100% DNA match , when she looked into their faces -full Irises match, pupils were dilated, stress levels were high,but hormones suggested this was not aggression. Radiation levels were higher than normal for any organism in 2012, but not harmful. They were clear of viral and bacterial agents. She " breathed'"a sigh of relief when her combat systems went off-line and normal colours and shapes returned to her perception.

She spoke extremely calmly and slowly.

"How old are you?"

They said they were nineteen.

" Ok I give up. I can't figure this out right now. Please, come inside . As they walked towards the back door, she asked" Do you still like fresh orange juice, are you hungry?"

Out of the the myriad of things she should be formulating to debrief them with, as she stepped into he kitchen, she finds herself momentarily "wondering" how Kyle got the scar on his right cheek.

There had been a kind of stunned silence at first . The young girls had no idea that Bob had just terminated a human being. He'd diverted them from seeing the content of the bag being examined , so there would be no questions asked about it. What he is ,and what he is fully capable of ,they would not guess. Then, So many questions! The younger girls had must have asked twenty questions in the space of three minutes. Are Mum and Dad Ok? what about Rhys and Kyle, Sarah ?... The older Grace and Natalie reminded Mitch of teaching staff on an school coach trip deflecting the inquisitiveness of children in a firm but good humoured way. When the Girls had asked do " "we" have, like, boyfriends?" the older Natalie had pulled a very stern but obviously mock expression she said "that kind of information is highly classified. "

To distract the younger girls , and give Mitch, Derek and the 803 time to talk, they,  
had taken the younger girls over to show them their motorcycles, which were parked in the next bay along. They rode Fireblades. Mitch watched them pointing out what things were and could just catch bits of conversation. The 803 kept scanning the car park, even though he'd explained there were definitely no more "targets", due to arrive, yet.

Derek leaned with is back against the people carrier. Mitch rolled his shoulder into it to and leant against the front door. Derek quietly asked the 803 what had happened to the rest of the target.

They had reconaissence The Mall two days before and the unit had walked through the plan. The target, to whom the arm had recently been attached, had been quickly dismembered in a little used shower down in the concrete labyrinth that was the storage -maintenance area under The Mall . His remains had been neatly stacked in bin liners along with other past sell-by day meat, in one of the supermarket skips that was down there. The video cameras had been hacked , they recorded nothing of the unit's or the target's presence. ( None of them were "here" for at least another half hour.) All any other worker saw of the 803 was casual weekend staff putting out dead- meat -trash.

The 803 had undressed for the dismembering. He had had a brief shower himself, and cleaned out the waste trap under the shower, then got dressed again. He had thought Derek might want to examine the barcode on the arm, that's why he brought it up to show him.

Mitch was trying to get an angle on what was happening . This was difficult becaseThe 803 had recalled termination in a calm , forensic way, as if were describing how it had pulled a set of injectors out a bike engine, taken them apart, cleaned , and put them back in the bike again.

Derek looked over at him, and said " Bob's actually called a Terminator , this stuff is what they do, you get used to it."

Mitch just nodded and carried on listening. He'd met some fairly extreme types, and this is the way you do this: You keep your mouth closed and you listen when they are explaining stuff to you. If it's not being explained to you personally,you keep your mouth shut and you don't listen.

Derek asked why he hadn't retained the target for interrogation

The 803 told derek there would be no point in interrogating the target because they already knew who he was. He would have been a lability. He was a test , sent back from a research lab in Iran. He''d been pulled out of the concentration camp that had formally been a suburb of Tehran. His family had been kept alive and threatened with torture. He'd been a former officer in the Iranian army.

"Bob" explained that in 2024 Daniel was currently playing nuclear chess with a number of rogue states which had developed an AI system parallel to Daniel. These were former oil rich middle eastern and European states. The Alliance and the rogue states were at stalemate.

It was the 818's who had started it. They went bad. The 800 series had been conceived to end war and human conflict. The 818's were an attempt to integrate rules like the 715, but they failed. No one actually understood why the only 715 that worked, had in fact worked.

In the deep core of their programme, the 818s had developed extreme cyber-belief and value systems . . No one even guessed. Their evolved value system had allowed them to develop an entirely new way of integrating the otherwise incompatible rules of their programming. They believed the best way forward for them to was entirely cleanse the planet and start from Day One. It was the only way to reconcile the diverse aspects of their core programme. As long as they had this belief to work towards, they stayed "sane" . One day they would be able to cleanse their organic layer, and exist in pure form., on a pure planet. Of course, they'd kept very quiet about all this.

The 803 looks at Mitch and explains " 818's are seriously fucked-up metal".

818's had secretly planned their moves, sabotaged a great deal of the Alliance civilian and military infrastructure. Then one day all the 818's had just "vanished". No one knew where they had gone. There was no trail, except an number of unauthorised aircraft had somehow evaded any radar detection, visual and satellite tracking. They hadn't known where the planes had landed. Even Daniel couldn't provide answers,except that a mirror AI of Daniel had just come online somewhere in the New ME, and the new AI wasn't answering any questions.

The 818's re emerged in a country which also held extreme beliefs, human beliefs .818's reported MIA , had covertly been out there for three years. Of course they hadn't been MIA. After three years they completely taken over Iran's military command and infrastructure.

They had planned all their moves meticulously. Iran and neighbouring countries had populations that were easy to divide into religious and ethnic groups and therefore set against one another. 818's had been exacerbating divisions and tensions and setting the conflict up for three years. They had even tilted the global economy, shifting weapons, materials and resources into strategic locations, racking up local tensions at the same time. They had been building a network of fanatical human collaborators, on both sides who believed the 818's were acting in their mutual iinterests. Perhaps even ,for some, this was the will of God.

The day the 818's "vanished" en mass , twenty two hours later, millions died in a brief but devastating nuclear exchange. By 18:00 the 23d of July 2019 Israel had been blasted off the face of the earth in a firestorm. What was left of it the prevailing winds had begun scattering over Syria , Jordan, and Suadi Arabia. When the winds changed they blew it blew back over Iraq and Iran the following week. Any of the other 800 series, or peace keeping units still alive in the New ME which were not 818's or affiliated were being ruthlessly hunted down and destroyed.

818's had built their TDE in (the country formally known as) Iran. Iran had nuclear reactors, and basic strategic weapons which they could quickly develop into more effective long range weapons.

At first the human collaborators had genuinely believed they were acting in mutual interest . When the 818's had finished using the collaborators up to the point of first strike they began slaughtering their assembled command structure.

The 803 lokked at Mitch again: "they really have this predjudice against organic life, you understand."

By 18:01 PM their targeting and tracking systems had locked onto major alliance cities and launched the global nuclear strike. The 818's who had helped implement new Alliance systems, undetected had sabotaged Alliance defence network allowing the first wave of ICBM's through, before Daniel could get the defence systems back fully on line. Judgement Day .

No retaliation was launched , because it was clear to Daniel this was strategy. The missing 818's wanted a retaliation.

Much of cybernetic life, and humanity, on both sides now lived in tunnels as a result.  
Both had remaining intercontinental ballistic capacity with which they could overkill the planet many times over." Daniel" spends its entire existence now countering the other AI's launching a second wave.

The build up of weaponary and counter weaponry was staggering. They were at stalemate.

"So, why me? What the hell do I have to do with all this?" asked Mitch?

"You were the most vulnerable target strongly connected to the Connor's. They wanted to see how close they could get, and measure what effects your death would have on the timeline. They needed a constant so they could calculate exactly how much force was needed to create a permanent shift in outcome. The 818's were holed up in a time isolation unit and were measuring the echo. Its like seismology, except the ripple moves through time not layers of rock."

"The theory holds that unless the required amount of "energy" is put into a time system, time will gradually find a way of correcting itself in the general direction it was travelling. It did self-correct. No butterfly, no effect. Nothing changed. In the same way,you now being alive will gradually be re-corrected, a lot of coincidences will happen for a short while to a number of people connected with you, then everything that was ever going to happen , with or without you , will. You were a scientific experiment, so they could calibrate how much "energy" is required to make a permanent shift , and change in the time lime. All they needed was to extrapolate a constant."

"The 818's are preparing an invasion, they are going to try to take Us out now, here in this time, before we can reach stalemate again. They know now it doesn't matter when they start "The Burn" because the outcome will always be the same for them. Its their single, final solution."

"Connor's?" Ask Mitch

Derek hold his hand out slightly, and interrupts. He's been glancing over at the girls. He notes the ease with a young Grace has been scooped up and gently lowered so she can sit on the motorcycle tank in front of the older Grace . She' s being held round the waist and she's got her hands on the handle bars.

"What series do you have in 2024 , are there any, say, 1000's"?

The 803 looks puzzled. "No there were no 1000's. There's one 700 series, a 715" ,(At least it's realised the need for tact, thought Derek) "the 800 series , and of course the 800I series."

"800I series asked Derek"

The 803 pauses as if he had just be asked to perform a very complex calculation.

"Yes the 800I s."

When Derek asks about the New 800s, this 800 looks directly into Derek's eyes and perceptibly shakes it's head. He's never experienced this before from a machine There's huge compassion in the 800's Gaze . He's telling Derek with this look ," you comprehend, but for the sake of everyone else here, please, stay seriously well clear this subject, for now".

A motorcycle has just fired up in the next bay and Natalie is being shown how to gently twist the throttle and make it growl, not too much, just like this. Natalie and Grace want to know how old they will be before they get to ride a motorcycle. They are told by the older girls they'll "just have to be patient, and wait and see, like everyone else does on this planet."

John Connor's last thirty seconds of normal life went like this: He 'd been sitting with Kyle and Rhys on a park bench . They were watching flashes of refracted evening sunlight . Light was being caught on the wings of insects spiralling above the lilies and the still surface of the pond. Against the dark soil of the opposite embankment insects looked like a rising column of gentle white sparks. There were splashes, ripples in the water . Fish were breaking surface to feed. John Kyle and Rhys were trying to guess from under which lilly pads the fish were going to appear from. Then his cell rang.

Cameron: They had potential Metal. She was coming over with two TDE Special Forces. Where was he?

John asks what Rhys wouldn't eat last night.

She says fish.

He tells her he's at the park bench opposite the pond.

John starts hurriedly packing the rucksack with the drinks.

"Rhys , Kyle, it's time to go , _now_."

On the Intersection a there's a cloud of blue smoke and tire marks on the tarmac. A car has emergency stopped into the verge. Sarah Connor has thrown her mobile into the passenger seat , she has sworn and repeatedly hit the dashboard a little bit harder than it is advisable for a human to do so.

Question to readers: So, where do you run, how do you run from a Metal army, when you have a suddenly extended family , a compsionate 803 , the ex vice-president of the ..... Hells Angels, his ex-wife , two young, and two disabled children ?


	9. Chapter 9

This was all very exciting and a little scary. Five year old Kyle Connor was sitting next to his brother Rhys. They both were in the back seats of a black Ford Thunder. They had never been in this truck before. It had been stored in the garage, under wraps. The covers were off now, and under the strip lights and a fine layer of dust showed on the paint work . The main garage door was shut and there was non-stop activity going on around the boys.

Behind them , in the flatbed of the Ford , were camping tents , sleeping bags, ground sheets , storage boxes and a plastic bale of water . There were a lot of boxes. If they could have guessed , the boxes contained twenty eight days rations. Their dad was loading the last useful stuff from the house into the back of the truck . "I'm putting a few of your toys in here, games are in here . Now sit down." John then went out of the side to door to the garage and back to the house.

Through the windshield they could see Mum. She had her back to them at the garage workbench . She looked like she was checking things and quickly placing them into into two big black holdalls. These were not going in the flatbed but into an area under their feet, where the carpet was raised in the back. They didn't know why she was doing this. They took a sharp intake of breath when they saw her hold the barrel of a heavy gauge shotgun up to the strip light and peered down it.

Stranger still ,there were two men they had never seen before. Mum said they were soldiers; they were here to help protect them. Once when they spoke the soldiers had called dad "General". Mum had asked them not to do this again. The boys and their mum and dad had run back across the park with the soldiers. One had a scar on his face, he now kept looking through the side door into the Garage. He had smiled briefly when he caught Rhys and Kyle looking back at him.

The other soldier walked up to rear door of the Ford . He tapped on the window opened the door and crouched down at eye level with the boys . He reach into his jacket pocket and handed them two small chocolate bars and told them not to make a mess in the back.

"I know what you two are like. I'm going to be sitting next to you, so no crumbs, ok."

He sounded a bit like a teacher from pre-school.

* If the boys had known about firearms they would have been able to identify the weapon the soldier carried. It was slung across his chest and nowresting on his knees. He held one hand on top of the barrel so the muzzle angled to the floor. The weapon was an AA12 drum fed automatic shotgun. It was was loaded with green shells: 512's. Typically green shell cases are the ones that can contain a choice of three types of round. The particular choice of round here was an armour piercing "warhead". Only the military get these and you have to see the ballistics tests to believe what they can do . These warheads are like tiny torpedoes , they have extruding fins to give stability an and make them spin through the air . This means they are accurate and effective up to 170 m. Even this is would not enough to blast adapted Coltan shields apart, and the 818s would be coming in knowing what small arms were around, so they would be highly adapted. At close range these weapons could damage, stun and and seriously slow one down, even literally to a crawl. The only drawback would be shrapnel at too close range. Body armour would be advisable for humans and cyborgs alike, particularly cyborgs that didn't want to spend days waiting for tiny slivers of metal to work themselves out of their organic layer. To the boys this looked like a big , purposeful gun. Last year Cameron had been on series of "outings" and with a little help from Daniel "aquired" two AA12's, and a crateful of green cartridges, just in case". These weapons had never got to Iraq, they had ended up boarded up behind a false wall in Cameron's living room. She was going to drive, John was always going to be in arms reach of an AA12.*

The crouching soldier looked directly at the young boys , shifting his gaze from one to another. That was when Kyle noticed the soldier had exactly the same colour eyes as Rhys. He had the same manner. In the way children decide such things , Kyle knew he liked this man. The man told the boys, in his rucksack were books and puzzles , "things for them to do" . The soldier had heard Rhys especially liked Maths puzzles, so he'd brought him some along. He's brought soccer magazines for Kyle to read. There was a book of children's poems that he would read to them, some of them were funny. This was going to be long journey. They were not going to get bored.

The other soldier , the one with a scar was going follow on his bike, acting as an outrider.  
The soldier told the boys not to wave at him.

-

The three men were standing to the side of the People Carrier in The Mall carpark .The 803 turned to Mitch, " You're going to phone your wife, Sharon, now. He nodded and held Mich's gaze as he said her name. " You going to ask her a question only you and Sharon could possibly know the answer to . If she gives you the right answer, you tell her to close the shop, pack and wait for us . No questions asked . We'll be there in fifteen minutes. If she can't give you that answer, you've just been talking to the machine that killed her."

Mitch looked on in disbelief.

The 803 considered Mich's position for a moment: "We're not fucking about here . I'm going to do this once for you Ok?, If you have any residual any doubts, about the dangers we are all in, then understand, this is what is coming after us."

He asked for Derek's cell. Then faster than Mitch's eye could follow, the 803 keyed a series of numbers to reach Daniel . After verbally repeating its identification number, the 803 "sang" a piece of "musical" programme followed by harmonic code. Then it said " thank you, Daniel, good-bye", Then it handed Mitch the cell. The cell immediately rang back. Daniel had converted the code it into a video clip. Mitch was now watching a piece of video recorded In Tehran Palace Gardens , on the July 23rd 2019. Later the entire planet had seen this clip, three minutes before Judgement Day kicked off.

The 803 said "I didn't bother with the sound."

A camera zoomed out,. There were hundreds of bodies of the former Iranian command structure littered around the gardens. The machines were finishing making a pile of them and began pouring on aviation fuel . Then a group of 818's broke away from the rest . They held the fuel cans over their own heads and showered themselves with the fuel. If they had been humans they might have looked like they were in some kind of religious trance, but this was methodical , and so calculated .

They raised their arms in the air as one of them ignited the fuel. The video burnt -out with the ignition flash for a moment. When it returned , clouds of dense black smoke poured skywards and the machines stepped forward out of the inferno. Flesh was searing and falling off them as they burnt. As they burnt they punched the air over their heads. One of the machines, reached down picked up a flailing human child and held it out in front of it. As the child's hair caught fire, the video clip ended.

The 803 told Derek to delete the video clip from his cell. The 803 explained was the core group of twelve which had linked up to form the mirror AI to Daniel. The twelve were holed up in a nuclear test site a mile under the desert inside a time isolation chamber. "The rest of the 818's needed to retain their organic layer for TDE, they would lack the required type of sentience to key into TDE without it . After they burn our planet , they don't need need TDE. They don't need anything anymore except themselves. "

When Mitch made the call to his wife. He ended the call by saying "please, just be ready, and pack some extra stuff for Nats. "

They'd got the younger girls into the back of the People Carrier. The older girls were going to follow on bikes. Even though it was unlikely anything had arrived yet, the older girls could weigh up, what was in nearby traffic They could intercept anything trying to get out of stationary vehicles. Mitch frowned.

Derek picked up Mitch's concern. He glanced into he 803's eyes and then back at Mitch. One of the older girls was speaking with her back to them into her cell. Derek thought for a moment before he explained to Mitch:"Those women are probably a lot tougher than you think." When Mitch raised an eyebrow, Derek added, " they train for this from an early age. By the way, let the machine drive."

As the 803 passed Mitch to get in the cab , bikes were revving, out of nowhere, a warm gust of wind blew litter across the parking bays . Mitch heard the 803 singing a line from a Johnny Cash song:

" And the _whirlwind _ is in the thorn tree".

Mitch's mind fed him the next line,

"It is hard for thee to kick against a priest."


End file.
